The fuse in the extractor hood above my cooker blew on Wednesday. I fitted another and the fan started but when my wife turned on the light… !!!BANG!!!. Blub removed (a subminiature LED type) and it was a bit greasy. There is “grease stopper” paper in the lid but they still get icky inside. Bulb cleaned of any grease near terminals (MES), another new fuse, reassemble and now the light works. 10 seconds later…!!!BANG!!!
Something was flashing over with the light. Another fuse, bulb removed and fan was working. That will do till I have more time.
I have just dismantled the lamp holder and found the body of a wasp across the terminals. Well it was a bit blackened and charred. Body removed, bulb inserted and now it stays lit. Or it stayed lit for the minute I tested it. I have the wasp’s body and will photograph it later as this was a real failure inducing hardware bug!
These extractors and all the accessories in a kitchen do not like the fat from our dishes, we know that, but there is also the fact that the obsolescence of our daily tools is a proven thing…
The intricacies of the UK ring main wiring. There is a wire leaving the consumer unit/fuse box that visits each power socket in the kitchen/dining room and runs to the next socket, visiting all 20 of them and then back to the consumer unit. i.e. it is a continuous loop. Each socket is capable of 13A at 240V and the entire circuit is rated at 32A. So you may have a high current load like a kettle in one socket and a microwave on another. Some sockets have things like the kitchen radio etc. Should the loop break at some point then the circuit becomes two spurs and still works. The circuit is protected with a 32A MCB and there is an RCD as well. That is the wiring. Then in UK style in the plug of every item there is a fuse. This fuse is to protect the device’s cable in the event of a fault, it is not to protect the device. So the 32A MCB was not tripping on the short because the 3A fuse in the plug protecting the cable blew faster than the MCB could trip.
It makes sense if you have grown up with the UK ring main system
Should have stopped there. That’s a beautiful system. It mean you don’t have to reset ever gudum device for a deas wasp. Foiled that bug’s plan of DNS.
Apparently a lot of new installations in the UK are radial like the rest of the world uses. I think the only reason for the ring main was to save copper when it was really expensive and in short supply (post war rebuild perhaps?). Although with the way shortages are going perhaps the ring main is a good idea…
